Up to 270 jobs lost as Russell Hume enters administration

A meat supplier being investigated by the Food Standards Agency has fallen into administration with the loss of almost 270 jobs.

KPMG has been appointed as administrator to Derby-based Russell Hume.

Its meat products were recalled last month and chains including Wetherspoon took them off their menus.

The FSA said its investigation concerned Russell Hume’s failure to comply with food hygiene regulations.

The firm’s directors called the decision to call in administrators “heartbreaking”, but said the regulator’s action had “created impossible trading conditions for us”.

Chris Pole, partner at KPMG and joint administrator, said the recent product recall and halt in operations had resulted in a customer exodus. As there was little prospect of production restarting, he said a total of 266 people had been made redundant.

In a statement, Russell Hume’s directors said they would continue to work with the FSA over the issues it had raised, but added: “We still feel its action has been out of all proportion to the concerns it says it has identified. The fact that its investigations have become industry-wide and a number of other firms have also had issues strongly suggests there is a lack of clarity in the industry and in current FSA guidelines. Prior to this, we had a long, unblemished record for supplying quality meat products.”

Russell Hume supplied meat to a range of hotels, restaurants and pubs across the UK and had six production sites in Liverpool, Birmingham, London, Boroughbridge, Exeter and Fife.

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